A few weeks ago, the International Federation of Automobiles (FIA) announced that the official FIA motorsport racing game would no longer be Gran Turismobut Assetto Corsa Competizione.
However, the FIA has revealed in an interview with Motorsport.com that its esports collaboration with Gran Turismo wasn’t over, just on hiatusthe time that the developers of GT7 (Polyphony Digital) add needed features and fix multiplayer instability.
“It’s not over[…] For Motorsport Games, the difficulty we had at that point was that they weren’t necessarily ready to support the live event the way we wanted, because of GT7 and all that. […] So we agreed with them that we would work with Assetto Corsa for this one. It’s also easier for us, because it’s more open to many countries. […] But we are still working with Gran Turismo on many other projects. So no, it’s not the end. It’s just an acceptance of the non-exclusive approach, and we think esports needs to be more open.[…] That’s what we agreed with Kazunori-san. It’s agreed, and it’s done in a perfectly Japanese way! – Frédéric Bertrand, Director of Innovative Sporting Activities for the governing body of motorsport and Formula E
Until June, Gran Tursimo 7 prevented hosts of multiplayer lobbies from switching tracks without having to close lobbies and recreated new ones. The new competitive season of GT7, the World Series, has started, without the support of the FIA. However, the latter intends to follow the next event, the World Series Showdown at Hangar-7 to assess the progress of the game at this stage. If the federation and the developers estimate that the game will be ready by the end of 2022, they could start again to cooperate on events from next year.
Gran Turismo 7 received a mixed reception when it was released. The fact that neither its developer nor the FIA deemed the title ready for a professional championship reinforces the idea that the game came out sloppy.